Sunny days
SWITCH YOUR EMBROIDERY THREAD FOR TACTILE RAFFIA TO PERSONALISE A SIMPLE STRAW BAG WITH COLOURFUL BLOOMS
MATERIALS
Straw bag
Raffia: 3m each of black, green, mauve, orange, pink
Basic embroidery kit
STITCHES USED
French Knots, Straight Stitch
NOTES
Find the templates on p61. Use a large-eyed needle for stitching the raffia with. You can use a blunt-pointed tapestry needle or a sharp-pointed chenille needle depending on the weave of the bag.
01 Trace around and cut out the leaf templates. You’ll need to draw three circles with diameters of 5cm, 6.5cm and 7cm to use as templates for the flowers. Plan the positioning of the flowers and leaves on your bag by placing the templates on top of it and take a photo to remind you. Make four pen marks around the edge of one circle. Remove the paper and mark the circle centre. These marks are used as a guide for the embroidery.
02 Take a length of raffia for the first flower and split it in half lengthways, as it makes it much easier to work with.
03 Thread the raffia through your needle and push it through the centre of the traced circle to the inside of the bag. Pull the needle all the way through to see where the centre of the circle is on the inside and secure the end of the raffia with a few stitches on top of each other. Bring the needle back through to the bag front in the centre to start filling the circle. Use one large stitch starting at the centre and reaching out to the four marked points.
Fill in the gaps with more Straight
04 Stitches until you have created a full flower. You’ll be going up and down the same central hole each time. Work with the weave of the bag and don’t worry about making the shape a perfect circle. Secure the end of the raffia in the same way you started, then trim off the end. Work a French Knot in the centre of the flower using a different coloured raffia.
05 Work all the flowers in the same way, referring to your photo for positioning, and choosing a range of colours.
06 Make the leaf shape by using one long Straight Stitch as the base stitch, then coming up through the same hole at the bottom of the stitch and making three or four stitches in decreasing lengths on each side, all fanning out from that bottom point. Finish the remaining leaves in the same way.
Chloe, owner of Cotton Clara, has been an embroiderer since childhood and studied textiles at university. She now designs and sells modern embroidery kits from her studio in Loughborough, where she lives with her husband and two boys.